Balloon-borne Observations of the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

宇宙微波背景辐射（CMBR）是早期宇宙的遗留物，它起源于我们所生活的宇宙的“大爆炸”。 CMBR天空亮度的变化携带着大约30万年后物质分布的印记，CMBR的线性偏振可以提供更早的信息，仅仅是创造后的几分之一秒。 该合同为正在进行的对1998-99年南极长期气球飞行获得的CMBR数据的分析提供支持，为早期有效载荷测量极化和另一次南极飞行的改进提供支持。 从事这项工作的研究小组可能是该领域的世界领先小组。

The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is a relic left over from the early universe and it has its origin in the "big bang" in which the universe that we live in was created. The variations in brightness on the sky of the CMBR carry the imprint of the distribution of matter about 300,000 years after creation and the linear polarization of the CMBR can provide information from even earlier times, just a fraction of a second after creation. This award provides support for the on-going analysis of CMBR data obtained by an Antarctic long-duration balloon flight in 1998-99, for the development of modifications for the earlier payload to measure polarization and for another Antarctic flight. The research team doing this work is probably the leading group in the world for the field.